After\u00a0 surviving a reported\u00a0 player revolt, Argentina coach\u00a0 Jorge Sampaoli\u00a0 is pinning his\u00a0 hopes on PSG\u00a0 winger Angel Di Maria, Juventus\u00a0 scoring sensation Gonzalo Higuain\u00a0 and\u00a0 Sevilla\u00a0 central midfielder\u00a0 Ever Banega\u00a0 in a 4-3-3 formation\u00a0 to beat\u00a0 Nigeria in their Russia 2018 World Cup final\u00a0 group\u00a0 match in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday\u00a0 and land in the second round.<\/p>\n
Two-time world champions\u00a0 La\u00a0 Albiceleste\u00a0\u00a0 will be sent packing from\u00a0 Russia if they lose to the Super Eagles \u2013 after their shock 1-1 draw with Iceland and their 3-0\u00a0 humiliation\u00a0 by Croatia at the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Sampaoli\u2019s 4-3-2-1 formation with Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi the soul and spirit was blamed for the White and Sky-Blues\u2019 poor showing in both encounters.<\/p>\n
Sampaoli, who is under intense fire from the Argentine media and fans following the South American powerhouse\u2019s mediocre run in the Eurasia country, has reportedly agreed to make changes to his team for the decisive\u00a0 Saint Petersburg Stadium clash after much pressure from star\u00a0 players including Messi and Javier Mascherano.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent learnt that the former Chile manager has decided to drop Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero for Higuain, who was started as a substitute along with Di Maria and\u00a0 Banega against Croatia.<\/p>\n
It was learnt that Banega, who has been lined with a move to Arsenal, will play from\u00a0 the left side of the midfield in front of the defence, with\u00a0 Higuain leading Messi and Di Maria\u00a0 in the attack.<\/p>\n
Banega, 29, is gifted with great dribbling skills, vision and accurate passing, which have made him popular at his La Liga side.<\/p>\n
Reports from the Argentine\u00a0 camp on Thursday\u00a0 claimed that Sampaoli\u00a0 tested\u00a0 his probable team for\u00a0 today\u2019s match on Monday\u00a0 with River Plate goalkeeper Franco Armani, Gabriel Mercado, Marcos Rojo, Nicolas Tagliafico, Enzo Perez,\u00a0 Nicholas Otamendi,\u00a0 Banega, Messi, Higuain\u00a0 and Di Mar\u00eda in the\u00a0 starting lineup.<\/p>\n
Sampaoli is banking on a versatile Banega to team up with former Barcelona star Mascherano to nullify the threat posed by Victor Moses and Ahmed Musa.<\/p>\n
Musa, who shot down Iceland with two superb goals in Volgograd on Friday, has scored four World Cup goals, two against Argentina, and he will aim to compound their woes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After\u00a0 surviving a reported\u00a0 player revolt, Argentina coach\u00a0 Jorge Sampaoli\u00a0 is pinning his\u00a0 hopes on PSG\u00a0 winger Angel Di Maria, Juventus\u00a0 scoring sensation Gonzalo Higuain\u00a0 and\u00a0 Sevilla\u00a0 central midfielder\u00a0 Ever Banega\u00a0 in a 4-3-3 formation\u00a0 to beat\u00a0 Nigeria in their Russia 2018 World Cup final\u00a0 group\u00a0 match in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday\u00a0 and land in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1078,92,886,707,857],"class_list":["post-1310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-argentinaprong","tag-nigeria","tag-russia-2018","tag-super-eagles","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}